News Archive - 2026

Stock image of someone using a laptop
AI agents have a memory problem. Franklin researchers are working to fix it.

Researchers in Franklin College of Arts and Science have built a new memory architecture for AI agents that improves response accuracy on complex tasks up to 23 percent.   The system, called Synapse (Synergistic Associative Processing and Semantic Encoding), addresses the current struggle for large-language models and agents to recall past conversations. This “contextual isolation” often results in weak and conflicting responses.…

Adam stands in front of the geology building
‘Geologists are part of a solution’: How Adam Milewski went from aspiring lawyer to science advocate

For most of his early life, Adam Milewski was convinced he was going to be a lawyer. He didn’t feel particularly drawn to pursue a legal career, but everyone else told him he should pursue it. “As the youngest of five kids, I felt like I had to have a voice,” he said. “I never really accepted the answer ‘no’ very well, and I always sort of had ideas and proposals.” But underneath the argumentative streak was something that didn’t quite fit that…

Flatworms
Study from Franklin professor identifies genes that help flatworms regenerate their brains

Findings could help scientists design better therapies for humans with TBI, brain diseases The human brain is terrible at healing itself from injury or disease. But some animals can harness their own cellular abilities to not only repair injuries but also to regrow their brains entirely. Researchers from the University of Georgia have pinpointed several of the genes that make brain regeneration possible in one type of flatworm. “Big picture: We…

Nick Foukal in Antarctica
UGA Marine Sciences professor studies how currents affect the climate

Nick Foukal educates the next generation of oceanographers Nick Foukal’s fascination with the ocean began decades ago, on the waters off the coast of Nahant, Massachusetts, a 3,000-resident beach town 13 miles north of Boston. He remembers spending summers taking the family’s rowboat out with his brother, fishing and setting lobster traps.  But beyond catching crustaceans, Foukal was never particularly interested in the biological side of…

Jane Odum on stage receiving award
Franklin Ph.D. student’s summer pivot wins $100,000 prize for AI startup MyFixam

Jane Odum developed MyFixam through the inaugural Franklin CREATE! Summer Startup Academy  Three months after Jane Odum earned just $9 from the first product she tried to sell, the University of Georgia computer science Ph.D. candidate stood on a Los Angeles stage to accept a $100,000 prize.  Odum won third prize in the Google XPRIZE Build with Gemini Competition for MyFixam, a marketplace where people in Nigeria can find verified…

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